Cinema’s most famous psychiatrist is a cannibalistic serial-killer with a weakness for liver served with fava beans and a nice Chianti. Dr. Hannibal Lecter is prominently featured in four novels by Thomas Harris and is the protagonist in the last two. In Silence of the Lambs, he is serving a life sentence for his crimes when he is visited by FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), who has been sent to get his help in tracking down a fellow serial murderer. Anthony Hopkins, with a long and distinguished body of work in film and stage already behind him, found in Lecter a career-defining role. His claim that he drew inspiration from Katharine Hepburn and HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey rings true — what makes Lecter truly frightening isn’t merely his monstrous behavior, but how its cloaked behind a disorienting veneer of courtliness and civility.
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